I'm a NaNoWriMo WINNER!

I cannot believe that I did it!  I actually did it!

I'm a NaNoWriMo WINNER!

So what did I win?  A pat on the back and a healthy sense of accomplishment, that's what.  Do you know how rarely I finish something I start?  This really is an achievement worth shouting about!

Writing a novel in a month is very difficult, and I must say I don't think November is the month to do it in.  Sorry, NaNoWriMo people.  It's just not.  First of all, I'm a college student and the semester ends in just two more weeks, which means that November brought a slew of research papers and tests.  It's hard to write my word quota every night when there are stupid school assignments demanding that I write them too.  Aside from school, there's also Thanksgiving which required me to spend the day with family (not writing) and the change in weather which caused me to get sick (not writing).  Oh, I also went and got myself a new job where I work forty hours a week (time not spent writing).

Yet somehow I managed to do it.  In fact, as of Monday night I didn't think I would make it.  The NaNoWriMo goal is a 50,000 word first draft, and I had just shy of 40,000.  I was telling Brian that I was okay with not making the goal because at least it motivated me to write that much.  But Brian wouldn't let me give up on myself.  He told me to keep writing!

So I did.  By the end of Tuesday night I had managed to write 7,583 words that very day.  Luckily I didn't have to work!  Wednesday morning I had 2,417 words left to go.  Between getting home from my class at 10:20 and leaving for work at 1:00, I was able to finish the novel!  I finished at 50,296 words which I am very proud of.  Typed in double-spaced 12-point Courier New, my first draft is 232 pages long.  I've never written that much in my life, let alone one month.

So you'll be seeing that winner's logo in the upper right-hand corner of my blog for a while... because I am very proud of myself!